So most of the series is Sifted...

*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Problems-with-First-Past-the-Post-Voting-Explained

*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Alternative-Vote-Explained

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Gerrymandering-Explained

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Mixed-Member-Proportional-Representation-Explained

The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg.

The Alternative Vote Explained has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg.

Gerrymandering Explained has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg.

Mixed-Member Proportional Representation Explained has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg.

*promote it also...

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014 6:08am PDT - promote requested by original submitter RFlagg.

*animation *nature

Adding video to channels (Animation, Nature) - requested by ant.

Except it doesn't work, the flaw occurs when applying unused votes to other candidates, this video assumes everyone who picked white tiger for their first choice will pick orange tiger as their second.

There's no assumption going on, the electorate decide who their second choice is.

To make things easy, let's imagine an electorate of 100 voters, with 3 representatives and a 33% threshold.
So let's say 60 people give White Tiger their no.1 and among those people, their second vote is spilt 40 to Orange Tiger and 20 to Silverback.

So White Tiger has 27 surplus votes. Those surplus votes are divided by proportion to Orange Tiger and Silverback.

So in this case Orange Tiger gets 66% of the surplus vote and Silverback 33% giving them 18 and 9 votes respectively.

What happens if white tiger gets 34 votes with 6 to orange tiger, 6 to silverback, 6 to monkey, and 16 to "no second choice"?

That's a made up scenario. No-one is ever going to have an electorate of 100 voters, I only used that figure to make the math easier.

But let's multiply everything by 100, so we have an electorate of 10000 with 3334 votes needed to get elected (much more realistic).

In your scenario, white tiger has 666 surplus votes.

The 1600 people with "no second choice" are ignored, and the votes are split 3 ways (222 votes each) to Orange Tiger, Silverback and Monkey (who's not even running in the electorate ).

edit: fixed the math

That doesn't work. Take a situation with candidates A,B, C and D; and 100 votes. If candidate A receives 67 votes (with D receiving 1 second place vote, and 66 "no second choices" ). B Receives 20 votes (with A as a second choice for all voters). C receives 13 votes, and D receives no 1st place votes. In your method D would inherit 33 votes and get elected, even though only person voted for D (as a 2nd choice behind A!)


I'd expect each candidate to receive 8/34ths of a vote with the extra 16/34ths staying with the original candidate. Regardless, the video itself doesn't address this situation, and it therefore flawed(Even if the voting system isn't).

Jesus, it's a short informational video about STV. It's not meant as the definitive guide to it.

If you want to learn about it, educate yourself. Meanwhile, stop inventing edge cases that will never happen to convince yourself that STV doesn't work. It does and it's been implemented in plenty of democracies the world over.

Personally, I think MMP is a preferable system, but almost anything is better than FPP.

jesus christ where the fuck are the lion's votes? why don't the lions get a vote god dammit! jesus christ this is pissing me off!

Hey sorry, I didn't mean to piss you off. I'm actually a big fan of ranked voting, and was just wondering why this issue wasn't addressed in the video. Also as a software developer, I would caution you that edge cases happen all the time, and it's a lot easier to fix a software bug then sort out corrupted data.

I'm in. Let's Do THIS!!!!

Election is in two weeks...where do I sign up?

If the 'overage' of A's 67 votes is 33, D would not inherit all 33.
D had 1 2nd place out of 67. So he inherits proportionally.
D would get 33 * (1/67) = less than 1 vote.
33 * (66/67) would simply be non transferable, because they have no other place option.

Personally, I prefer a system where each candidate is individually rated from -100% to +100%.
So a ballot with 3 people, would let you write down 3 numbers. 1 per candidate.
- Each candidate's final result if the average of his rating.
- Final ratings are sorted by highest average, top N rated candidates are elected to N positions.
- All candidates are required to have an above 0 rating to be electable.
Meaning that there can be a vote of no confidence and no one is elected. (Aww, I guess we'd have to keep the laws we have until the next election cycle. No one elected to write more laws. Too bad )

-scheherazade

I do believe that "None of the above" is a fundamental democratic right.

The downside of no-one being elected to write more laws, is that there's also no-one to repeal existing stupid laws.

Fixing Congress with Fair Representation Voting has been added as a related post - related requested by RFlagg on that post.

John Oliver - Third Parties has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine on that post.